Frighteningly believable

Rating: Null/10 (22 December 2003)

I first saw this movie at the cinema in order to avoid trick-or-treaters on Halloween, 2002. We arrived late, and had to sit at the front, and I found the whole thing very harrowing indeed. I'm not good at horror films!
Having said all that, the film contains a few beautiful moments amid the horror, and much of the filming is wonderfully artful. Camera effects and treatments are straight from the cutting edge, the acting is quite arresting, and is carried by a good, solid, simple and utterly plausible script, which, for me, carries much greater weight by being set somewhere that means something to me: England, maybe next month.
The worst thing is that this film, in addition to being possibly as traumatic as spending a couple of hours watching 1969 Vietnam footage, is extremely convincing and explores a serious scientific question - what would happen if an infection broke loose which caused its victims to succumb to a homicidal rage in the space of 20 seconds? It's provocative science-fiction in the best sense of the word. Could we be there tomorrow? Probably not. But 28 days later? You'd better believe it.